Oh Dear Sir

Have you ever heard of the saying, “They went to the well once too often?”

It is said to be a saying that originates from the 14th century and basically means that you should not keep calling on the same resource after it has been exhausted, or repeat a risky action too often, or push your luck too far.

Certainly when it comes to money and sponsorship from India, the well is not yet dry, however those who keep returning to tap the same sponsors need to beware. Are they too reliant on the monies coming from one country, let alone one sponsor? Can they still deliver if that one sponsor had a sudden change of heart?

There are rumblings coming out of India that the International Hockey Federation (FIH) are due to announce that a four year sponsorship agreement has been brokered with Odisha Tourism.

In February 2018 Hockey India signed a five year deal with Odisha Tourism, a deal that sees their logo on the front of the Indian Men’s and Women’s teams shirts.

The Odisha Government has been totally committed to the sport.

Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik, who was seen as a regular attendee of the brilliantly run 2018 FIH Men’s World Cup said at the time of the announcement “Hockey in Odisha is more than a sport, it’s a way of life, especially in our tribal regions where children learn to walk with hockey sticks.” The deal brokered by Hockey India was said to be the first of its kind, where Indians saw one State Government stepping in to support a national team outside the confines of its state boundaries.

Hosting the Men’s World Cup appeared to reap immediate rewards. On January 16th 2019 the Business Standard reported “tentative figures collated by Odisha’s tourism department,”that the Tournament which finished a month earlier on the 16th of December had resulted in “1.61 million and 2.22 million domestic tourists in November and December respectively, up to 60 per cent higher than normal. Foreign tourists also arrived in higher numbers in the two months with an average monthly arrival of 15,000, higher by around 50 per cent.”

These are phenomenal figures. The Kalinga Stadium which hosted the 2018 World Cup was renovated to increase capacity to 16,000. With 36 matches being played at the World Cup, if the stadium was full to capacity that would have seen 576,000 through the turnstiles. So two to three times that figure travelled to the state while the World Cup was on, and did not attend games. Which is just what you want to happen when hosting and sponsoring an event. (What Is It They Say About Statistics…)

There is no doubt that the Odisha Government were ecstatic with these figures as they once again put their financial clout behind India’s bid to host the 2023 version of the Men’s Hockey World Cup. This was announced on 08 November 2019. The decision meant that India would become the first nation to host back-to-back World Cups, and would be the host of three of the last four World Cups.

Belgium and Malaysia were the two countries that missed out after Spain and Germany withdrew their bids. It was said that financially the India bid offered more to the FIH.

It was reported that Hockey India promised the FIH CHF3.5 million as ‘guaranteed profit’ from the event, while Belgium could only assure CHF1 million. Malaysia did not guarantee any figure. It was stated in the Hockey Paper that “an FIH spokesperson said the amount cited as ‘guaranteed profit’ is instead ‘hosting fees’ and added ‘those are not public.’”(sic)

This of course raised the issue as to whether the bid criteria was identical for all nations, which is the norm in most cases; FIFA excluded.

In fact in the Indian Express on 11th December FIH CEO Thierry Weil stated “I am extremely happy that we as a sport have decided to reuse a venue like Bhubaneswar because there was a lot of effort and investment done to build the stadium there.”

In the same article he went on to be quoted as saying “We want to do more development (take the WC to other parts of the world) but as with all things in life, when you want to do more development, you need to generate more revenues. And how can you do that? It is by making countries like India part of your sport.”

Those comments did little to comfort those in many other parts of the world. The reason that those words stuck in their craw was that on 27th of November in a ceremony at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced that two cities in the State would be playing host! Rourkela would be the second host city. Some have said that this announcement blindsided many Executives at the FIH.

Rourkela is 328km from Bhubaneswar. There are no regular flights into the city and the airport is essentially an airstrip. On the 14th of January 2020 The Indian Express reported that “the Brahmani Riverfront Development Project, a key component of the Smart City Mission, continues to lag owing to apathy of Rourkela Smart City Ltd (RSCL). Even as preparation of Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the project is underway, it is apprehended that the project may not be completed before Hockey World Cup, 2023.” Don’t they say that about every host city of an International sporting event?

It has been confirmed that the stadium in Rourkela will need to be upgraded, and the Odisha Government’s Vishal Dev, secretary-cum-commissioner of the sports and youth services department told the Times of India, “we have requested the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) since the stadium belongs to them, to upgrade it to the FIH standard.” Suddenly the venue argument had lost some of its credibility.

At the same time that the Hockey World Cup hosting rights were announced the FIH, against the wishes of many nations and players, announced that they would be pushing ahead with the FIH Hockey 5s World Cup in 2023. A move it was claimed that was made “in order to further boost the development of hockey globally.” Others across the globe fear that there are other motives. (Coming Full Circle)

The host for this tournament has yet to be announced, but it is understood that under the new agreement with the Odisha Government, they will play host to the inaugural tournament, and also to the Men’s Junior World Cup in 2021. If so, this will be the third time in succession that India has played host to this tournament, the last two events being hosted by Delhi and Lucknow.

It is understandable that if the Odisha Government is investing in Hockey in India and globally that they would want a return on their investment, and that they would want to see the key tournaments played in Odisha.

Yet the very first item in the FIH Statutes states “The fundamental purposes of the FIH are:
(a) to promote and develop Hockey at all levels throughout the world.”

In the same section it states: (d) to control the organisation and scheduling of competitions (including, without limitation, “world” or “international” championships and other events purporting to be “world” or “international” events or to determine “world” or “international” champions of Hockey), so as to ensure that the sporting calendar is organised and scheduled in accordance with the best long-term interests and priorities of the sport as a whole;

Holding all of the major men’s tournaments in one state in India is not helping promote and develop the game. No matter how fantastic a job the people of Odisha do in staging the event; from that perspective they cannot be faulted.

India is playing in the FIH’s flagship tournament, the FIH Pro League in 2020. Their opening game was played against The Netherlands. The game was held at Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar, as stated a fantastic venue. Yet tickets had to be given away to school children to try and fill up the empty seats. Trying to obtain the exact number of tickets sold for that opening game has been hard, but it is believed to be on or around 1500.

This is sad, and almost impossible to believe in a State where Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik claimed “Hockey in Odisha is more than a sport, it’s a way of life.” Odisha has a strong tradition of producing outstanding defenders. It has a rich hockey culture. So why did so few pay to watch the national team play? Will more pay to attend the up coming games against Belgium and Australia?

One Indian member of the media who requested their name be withheld believed that the reason for the poor attendance was due to simply too much Hockey in Bhubaneswar.

They may have a point. Since 2017 the stadium has hosted the Hockey India League, with the Kalinga Lancers winning the final edition in 2017, the Men’s FIH Hockey World League Finals 2017, the Men’s Hockey World Cup 2018, the Men’s Hockey Series Finals 2019, the 2019 Women’s FIH Olympic Qualifiers and the 2019 Men’s FIH Olympic Qualifiers. Also now all of India’s home games in the FIH Pro League.

A series against Bangladesh and another against South Korea featuring India A sides in 2018 were played in Bangalore, as was a three Test series against New Zealand. So since the end of the Hockey India League the national team has played three matches away from Odisha in two years. No wonder the people of the Punjab, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and other Indian states are becoming frustrated. After all it is a National team representing the whole of India made up of players from all of these states.

If they are becoming frustrated then imagine how the other Hockey nations are feeling.

It is understandable that the FIH has to go where the money is, but there has to be a balance.

When the Hockey Revolution was launched in 2014 one of the goals was to “generate millions more followers around the world.” India appeared the perfect place to do that in one fell swoop, but by hosting all the matches in one state even those millions of Hockey fans in India are turning their back on the game.

One of the Revolution initiatives was to find “commercial partners who share our vision.” What we are witnessing currently is not the vision that was shared at that time. There was to be “joined up Global Marketing,” that too is yet to be seen. We won’t mention the goal with television and where that is at.

All of these components that we were told would help Hockey fulfil its ambition, which was “in ten years hockey is a global game that inspires the next generation,” are unlikely to be seen if the sport continues to have such a narrow focus.

The game cannot possibly grow when all of the major events are held in one place. The next generation waiting to be inspired by a new sport and sporting hero, is missing out. Apart from of course those in that one location.

The announcement of the sponsorship deal has yet to be made, so we will have to wait and see what it entails, but hopefully Odisha Tourism will see the benefit in having another nation host some events, but in return they are given promotional opportunities.